<HTML
><HEAD
><TITLE
>An Overview of Content Management Systems (CMS)</TITLE
><META
NAME="GENERATOR"
CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.76b+
"><LINK
REL="HOME"
TITLE="The Official PostNuke Installation & Getting Started Guide"
HREF="book1.html"><LINK
REL="PREVIOUS"
TITLE="Who Should Use This Guide"
HREF="whoshoulduse.html"><LINK
REL="NEXT"
TITLE="An Overview of PostNuke"
HREF="overview-pn.html"><LINK
REL="STYLESHEET"
TYPE="text/css"
HREF="selfdocbook.css"></HEAD
><BODY
CLASS="chapter"
BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"
TEXT="#000000"
LINK="#0000FF"
VLINK="#840084"
ALINK="#0000FF"
><DIV
CLASS="NAVHEADER"
><TABLE
SUMMARY="Header navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TH
COLSPAN="3"
ALIGN="center"
>The Official PostNuke Installation &#38; Getting Started Guide: Revision 9939 / Preview</TH
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="whoshoulduse.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="80%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="bottom"
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="overview-pn.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="chapter"
><H1
><A
NAME="overview-cms">Chapter 5. An Overview of Content Management Systems (CMS)</H1
><P
>A Content Management System (CMS), in general, allows you to "dynamically" 
handle content (primarily text at this point in development, but images also to 
some degree -- as well as other media such as MP3's).  To illustrate this, 
compare a CMS with more traditional "static" HTML pages. With static pages, 
each time you want to change or update something on your site, you have to 
download, edit the page, and upload it back to the server. Only you, and the 
people who have your access codes, can update the site.
</P
><P
>With a dynamic CMS like PostNuke, you only have to upload the site during the 
initial installation of the CMS. If you want to add an article, you just go to 
your site with a web browser (from any computer connected to the Internet), and 
click on 'Add Story', 'Submit News', (or whatever this function is called on 
your site). A box appears, and you either type or cut/paste the story into the 
box, then click on the Submit button.
</P
><P
>At this point, the story may not appear immediately on the site, since CMS's 
can be configured so that any visitor can submit a story but a manager must 
approve the story before it is made available. The site manager, or one of a 
group of editors that are responsible for maintaining the site, will be sent an 
e-mail announcing that someone has submitted a story for approval. They will 
then go to the site, log in with their administrator name &#38; password and decide 
if the story should be deleted or approved &#38; posted. This occurs with just a 
few easy mouse-clicks.
</P
><P
>Once the story is approved, it will appear near the top of the page along with 
a small image which indicates the Topic associated with that story. All the 
other stories move down on the page to make room for the new story. 
</P
><P
>To summarize: with ordinary, static web pages, you have to do a lot of HTML 
editing and uploading each time you want to change something on your site. With 
a CMS, you can forget all this, and just change your site by surfing to it and 
clicking on the links for updating your site (so if you know how to surf the 
net, you can maintain your site; very little other work is necessary!).
</P
><P
>The above scenario describes only one of the most basic functions of a CMS. 
It's all you really need to know to maintain a basic site. But there are 
hundreds of different functions available in an advanced CMS like PostNuke. 
Fortunately, it's fairly easy to figure out the main functions, ignoring the 
rest until you wish to use them. But this is the second advantage of using a 
CMS instead of ordinary HTML pages: the advanced functionality allows your 
users to search your site, post on forums, leave user information which is 
easily manageable -- in short, anything that can be done with advanced database 
management. There are over 100 different 'modules' available for PostNuke, each 
with its own specific functionality, and new modules are being added every week.
</P
><P
>If you think all of this sounds good, you'll absolutely love this... In the 
description above, we have only scratched the surface of what PostNuke can 
offer! In fact, speaking technically for a moment, PostNuke has been designed 
as an ENGINE, and is capable of far more than simply posting news, stories, 
documentation, etc. The ENGINE of PostNuke essentially handles web site 
configuration, presentation,  and user management. Additional 'bells and 
whistles' chosen by the administrator can be virtually 'bolted' on to the 
PostNuke engine. Some may use PostNuke for something entirely different than 
the "news site" configuration we will be discussing in this manual. Many 
PostNuke sites are configured as a company Intranet application -- a single 
point-of-entry for all their internal processes (i.e., project approvals, time 
tracking, billing, file storage, etc.). PostNuke's only limitation is the 
imagination of the administrator. In fact, one of the PostNuke developers is 
giving serious consideration to writing a text-based game (ala Infocom) as a 
module that relies upon PostNuke's engine -- without a "news" focus at all!
</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="whoshoulduse.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="book1.html"
ACCESSKEY="H"
>Home</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="overview-pn.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
>Who Should Use This Guide</TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
>&nbsp;</TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
>An Overview of PostNuke</TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
></BODY
></HTML
>